


Say Nothing

by Mura



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 09:58:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1222009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mura/pseuds/Mura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos doesn't know what to say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say Nothing

If there is a formula to determine the optimal response to any series of words, it always has (and continues to) allude me. Perhaps now more so than ever, assuming that such an abstract concept is quantifiable. I can’t say if it’s a failure of science or of myself, but either possibility leads to the same result – at least as it appears to the rest of the conscious world. And that is silence. I don’t know what to say.

While I’ve just now gained nothing but verbal confirmation of the knowledge I already possessed as a result of listening to today’s broadcast, hearing it from Cecil’s mouth has given it a tangibility it previously lacked. And as we stand here, holding each other, I experience many extremely scientific feelings. Helplessness. Sorrow. Cecil’s own internal science, the currently relevant aspects being psychological in nature, is causing him to tremble slightly. And it leaves me without a frame of reference as to how to react, because throughout all the struggles he’s endured over the past few months with mirrors and identity, with corporations and censorship…I’ve never seen him like this before.

I want to say something to make things, if even by an almost imperceptible fraction, better. But I don’t know what I can say or, rather, I don’t know what I should say. I could tell him that everything will be alright. But I have no evidence to back up such a theory and so in telling him this I could very well be lying, and it is unscientific to lie. I could attempt to relate his experience to various facts I’ve acquired over the years, drawing parallels to statistics from previous points in our reality. But prior use of this tactic with others has often proven counterproductive, frequently resulting in accusations that I’m so preoccupied with making everything about science that I lack even the most basic compassion or emotions.

But the truth is – assuming there is an objective truth – the truth is that I’m feeling so much right now. Toward him, toward myself, toward this town, and toward this sometimes beautiful, sometimes horrific reality we all supposedly share. I feel anger at the backwards system that would allow such a thing to happen. I feel sadness for the pain I can infer he’s feeling right now, and fear for what all this could mean for him in the future. And I feel guilt that I wasn’t there to make that winning bid earlier today, so that right now I could be handing the deed to Lot 37 back to its only rightful owner. But I can’t convey any of this. I’m paralyzed by the theory that my words might come out wrong and hurt him even more. I’m trapped behind this wall of science and equations and social ineptitude that keeps me from verbalizing all of this in a way that I can be sure will be remotely productive.

So instead I just hold him a little closer and hope that he comprehends the message I’m trying to convey. He buries his face in my neck and squeezes me tighter. And I realize he understands.

And so we stand here, meaning everything and saying nothing.


End file.
